RITA Reader Challenge Review

Forged in Ash by Trish McCallan

This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by S Rose. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Romantic Suspense category.

The summary:

Kait Winchester inherited a special gift from her Arapaho ancestors: she can heal with her touch. And there is no one she would like to get her hands on more than the super-sexy SEAL who seems determined to ignore their off-the-charts chemistry. When the wounded warrior finally seeks her help, she’s ready to nurse him back to health…and into her bed.

Navy SEAL Lieutenant Marcus “Cosky” Simcosky is no stranger to hot water, but recent events have boiled over into one hell of a mess. His team is under investigation for a hostage rescue gone wrong, a crazy female stalker is on his trail, and the last few bullets he took just may sideline him for the rest of his career. The kicker? The one woman who can help him get back on his feet—and has haunted his fantasies for years—is his teammate’s sister. He’s looked but never touched. When his stalker targets Kait, though, Cosky will have no choice but to do whatever is necessary to keep her safe.

Here is S. Rose's review:

I really wanted to like this book. I generally like romantic suspense in general, and I think it can be one of the more difficult branches of the genre to write in.  There is so much balancing to do, with making the heroine vulnerable and yet feisty but not too stupid to live; the hero commanding but not crossing the line into domineering, the problem to be solved realistically suspenseful but not crossing into extreme violence or a series of action vignettes.  I felt this book did not succeed in making me care about the characters or their resolution.
The book begins with a prologue that if I was reading it on my own time and not for this review I would have immediately closed it and deleted it off my Kindle. It hits one of my no go points:
Show Spoiler
Spoilers: The woman who is a trying to harm Simcosky is trying to do so because in the opening prologue she has been put into a sinking minivan with her five deceased children, by people she believes to be associated with Simcosky.
The book is focused on a group of Navy SEALS and is the second in the series; while it was possible to get the gist of what was happening thanks to a large infodump in the first chapters, it was still slightly confusing about who was supposed to be where.  The SEAL team interfered with a terrorist attack on a plane and there is continuing fallout from that.  In addition, one of the SEAL team members is psychic. There is a romance between the ostensible main characters, but it often took a backseat to obvious future book set-ups for other team members and shoot-outs with terrorists.  Kait and Simcosky did not have conflict for their relationship that was that believable, and was resolved so quickly without much effort from either person that it seemed to have never been an obstacle in the first place.
There is also a stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans. Wolf, who is Kait’s protective older brother, is frequently described as having an impassive face or an unemotional aspect and being stonily silent most of the time. For unclear reasons, the author has given Kait long blond hair even with her half Native heritage. It is genetically possible but unlikely and seems to serve no purpose in the story. Little was gained narratively by insisting on a more Caucasian trait. The addition of the powers that are stated to be a part of Arapaho heritage without any sort of discussion of why that was so, felt uncomfortably like Magical Ethnic tropes without any character development to move them past two dimensions. Unfortunately this novel didn’t work for me.
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Forged in Ash by Trish McCallan

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  1. Phyllis Laatsch says:

    The Magic Indian was a bit of a deal breaker for me. I like your review better, because you didn’t obsess on that. But we gave it the same grade!

  2. Wait a goshdurn ed minute here… what did I just read? “There is a romance between the ostensible main characters, but it often took a backseat to obvious future book set-ups for other team members and shoot-outs with terrorists.”

    “Took a backseat?” Excuse me? The story you are actually reading in this actual book took a backseat to future book set-ups?

    Ok, now if that is not telling me that this author care more about the money than telling a good story, I don’t know how more plainly that could said.

    I think not only will I never read this story, I just might make a note to never read anything by Trish McCallan.

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